Browns receiver Josh Gordon, locked in the Stage III cell of NFL drug testing, is tested up to 10 times per month and has passed 70 drug tests.

That’s a lot — maybe even more than people on placed on probation by the criminal courts. At any rate, Gordon put himself there as part of a two-game suspension for the use of a cough syrup that contains codeine, Pro Football Talk reports. Incidentally, my medically prescribed cough syrup has codeine in it, too, but it’s not about me. It’s about Gordon, who is now facing a yearlong suspension for a failed drug test.

Gordon’s appeal hearing is Friday. He’ll be represented by attorney Maurice Suh, the same lawyer who helped Richard Sherman successfully appeal his suspension for PED use in 2012. According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, Gordon will aruge that his positive test was a result of second-hand smoke.

While Gordon has passed drug testing 70 times since entering Stage III, he has tested positive once. As PFT explains it, tests are put in samples labeled bottles “A” and “B.” If “A” is positive, the “B” sample is used to confirm the results “to the limit of detection” of the “A” sample.

In Gordon’s case, the “A” sample was one nanogram per millileter above the limit of 15. The “B” sample showed a concentration of 13.6 ng/ml — less than the limit.

All good, right? Wrong. The two were close enough to result in a positive test. If the “B” sample had been the first sample used, he would have passed.

It doesn’t sound like enough for a yearlong suspension, but then again, Ray Rice knocking his then-fiancee out cold sounded like it warranted more than a two-game suspension. There’s also the matter of Gordon’s DWI arrest — even while he awaited his hearing. Gordon, according to Fox Sports, checked into a California rehabiliation facility following his arrest.

Up until now, it appeared a Gordon suspension was a sure thing. But Suh could present a persuasive argument with facts Gordon felt strongly enough about to appeal in the first place.